They’re young, they’re in love … and they kill people
April 8th, 2008 at 09:19am Will Pfeifer
This week’s Movie Man column (which can be found by clicking here) is a review of the new BONNIE AND CLYDE DVD. It’s a truly great movie, one that sparked a revolution of sorts in Hollywood, and I highly recommend giving this remastered disc a look.
My column mostly focuses on the movie itself, but here are a few bits of making-of trivia I picked up, both from the documentary included on the disc and from Mark Harris’ excellent new book about the 1967 Oscar nominees, PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD:
1. Originally, Warren Beatty only planned to produce the movie, not star in it. He thought Bob Dylan (yes, the Bob Dylan) would be good as Clyde, and as for Bonnie, he thought about casting Shirley MacLaine. Once he decided to play Clyde himself, he wisely stopped considering Shirley for the Bonnie role. (She’s Beatty’s sister, if you didn’t know.)
2. It’s Gene Wilder’s first film.
3. When Warren Beatty was arguing with Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner about making the movie (Warner did not want to make it), Warner told Beatty to look out the window and see who’s name was painted on the studio’s giant water tower. Beatty says he went to the window and said “I don’t know — all I see are my initials.”
Entry Filed under: Classic movies, DVD reviews
6 Comments Add your own
1. Dr. z | April 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I didnt mind the violence and I enjoyed the use of old songs from Rudy Valle and Golddiggers of 1933, along with Flatt & Scruggs duribf the film. I remember looking upthe NYT headline from 1934 on microfilm. It was on the bottom front page and went something like “Barrow and woman killed in Texarkana ambush.” This film stood out from other violent films like those of Packinpaugh because the central characters were more three diminsional and, to a larger extent, sympathetic. The daily violence in VietNam, brought to us every night in (living) color, was more disgusting and gory than the ending of this film.
2. odessa steps magazine | April 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I always wonder when I watch the movie what it would have been like if Beatty had convinced either Godard or Truffaut to direct the movie.
3. Lend Him a Hand | April 8th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Who would be the best modern-day Bonnie and Clyde? How about Juliette Lewis and Ed Norton?
4. Will Pfeifer | April 9th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Dr Z — You’ve hit the nail on the head with your mention of sympathetic characters and the violence in Vietnam. From everything I’ve read, that was a major goal of the filmmakers: Combining humor and likeable characters with gruesome violence, sometimes in the same scene.
Odessa — I could see Truffaut filming it, because he had a sort of humanist, optimistic outlook. Godard, though I like him (better than Truffaut, in fact) had a pretty cold outlook, and I don’t know if that would work. BREATHLESS is probably as close as he came, and Truffaut wrote that script.
Lend — That’s not a bad pair, though Juliette Lewis seems to have fallen off the map. It’ll be interesting to see the PUBLIC ENEMIES movie coming out next year, with Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis. I think it’s shooting in Chicago right now.
5. odessa steps magazine | April 9th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
couldn’t you also Juliette Lewis has done the B&C thing already, in Natural Born Killers and maybe in Kalifornia?
6. hokumboy | April 9th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Will,
When the Depp/Dillinger film was shooting in Darlington WI three weeks ago, a Rockford friend got to be an extra for a day.
I’m still envious!
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